Not A Terrible Beauty, but A Transient One

Posted on October 28, 2008 in Campaign 2008 Reflections

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?

– Easter 1916, W.B. Yeats

It’s getting towards the end of the campaign and frankly I am getting tired of all the necessary posturing that comes with getting your candidate elected, your side of an initiative adopted. There is a terrible beauty that comes out of all of it as we slash through to the real issues that the baiting attempts to cover, but afterwards what? If McCain, I think I can go pretty much onwards as I have except for certain hardships if his health care proposal becomes law. If Obama, I may be pressed to know what kind of different personality to adopt to conform with Change.

For a moment here, I find myself in league with the McCain supporters who hear this word and flinch. But I am not filled with rage and fear, but a quiet emptiness. Just how am I supposed to change? Will an Obama-filled world really be that much better or will I just go about being Joel as I have?

This isn’t to say that the campaign hasn’t been inspiring — it’s given me something to work towards in which I am not alone even when the scope of my support cannot cover the social activities of the campaign such as calling or going to debate-watching parties. I’ve made a small place for myself posting links to articles on Twitter and the Orange County for Obama mailing list. I am appreciated, at least on the latter where it isn’t assumed that I am a robot or disruptive of old friendships. But this all ends November 5 regardless of the outcome. Then it’s back to just tutoring adults to read and helping people in my bipolar support group. No great changes for me. I’ll still dedicate myself where I can, encouraging others because I have not been able to rise above the disease and the failures. If you check my mood chart you will see I am not depressed. I do not see an end to the world or dark clouds. I’ll sit down with a dvd of Lost Broadway tonight and enjoy it, laughing where it feels right, crying in other spots because I have been moved. The terrors of the campaign don’t possess me so much as to deny me the pleasant things. There’s just not a sense of afterwards yet, of an afterwards which for me is real change.

I’ve voted, so the game’s nearly up. I won’t repeat the mistake of 2004 when I went to Las Vegas to help Kerry, spun out of control, and ended up two months later in the hospital. But because of who I am, what afflicts me, and what I cannot do, this election won’t affect me much unless John McCain gets in and health insurance becomes a taxable item. All the burst of promise won’t result in a dramatic turnaround here atop the fossil sand dune that is my neighborhood. So what has all this been for? A jolt of activity that has been good for morale, I’d say. Changes for people I know who have been suffering awfully under Bush. Not a terrible beauty like it is for some, but a transient one.